Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2009 | Forest and Rangeland Health | Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act | Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program Act | Sierra Vista Subwatershed Feasibility Study Act | Petrified Forest National Park Expansion | Yavapai Land Exchange | Clean Water Funding | Other Environmental Initiatives
I am a strong advocate of the prudent use of our natural resources; the thoughtful conservation of our national historic, cultural and natural treasures; the conservation of scarce water supplies; and the restoration of forest health. By putting these principles into practice, we can protect Arizona’s environment and improve our quality of life.
In February, Senator John McCain and I introduced the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2009, which would facilitate an important land exchange that will make possible the development of a new copper mine near the Town of Superior and surrounding communities. It will also protect some important environmentally sensitive lands in southeastern Arizona.
The land exchange authorized by the bill would allow the federal government to acquire and protect more than 5,500 acres along the San Pedro River, including an important internationally recognized migratory bird corridor, riparian and wetland habitat for threatened and endangered animal and plant species, and magnificent canyons and forests that are home to big game species.
In exchange, the government would give up about 2,400 acres of land to be used for the potential development of the new copper mine that could supply as much as 20 percent of the nation’s demand for copper and give the state a badly needed economic boost – one equivalent to two Super Bowls or about $800 million per year.
In an April 2006 editorial, the Arizona Republic described the proposed exchange as “a great deal for Arizona and its citizens.”
One of my top priorities continues to be restoring the health of Arizona’s forests, which include the largest stands of ponderosa pine in the world.
Decades of well-intentioned, but unwise, fire-suppression and forest-management policies have resulted in our forests becoming overgrown, packed with dense underbrush and numerous small trees that deny older, larger trees the water and nutrients they need to continue to grow. The dense growth also weakens the forest, making trees more susceptible to insect and disease damage, and more prone to devastating, high-intensity “crown fires,” which can melt soils, destroy wildlife habitat, and disrupt watershed functions. As we have seen far too often in recent years, such fires can also threaten human lives and property.
Effective science-based restoration will help restore the health of our forests and return them to their pre-settlement, park-like state, where low intensity fires can regularly clear the forest floor of debris and permit trees to grow to great size. I support the promising techniques that the U.S. Forest Service and Northern Arizona University are utilizing to improve the health of Arizona's national forests.
The Healthy Forests Initiative, launched in 2002, helped streamline the federal regulatory process to expedite the application of these important restoration techniques. Congress built on that initiative by passing the Healthy Forest Restoration Act a year later. Those two measures have enabled the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to work more productively with state and local leaders to plan and conduct science-based forest restoration projects.
Unfortunately, key components of the Healthy Forests Initiative are now in jeopardy due to environmentalists’ lawsuits, one of which, Summers v. Earth Island Institute, was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on October 8, 2008. It should be decided early in 2009. Certain parts of the initiative must await the resolution of the lawsuits before proceeding, but collaboration among groups concerned about forest health can continue apart from that federal initiative.
One way groups can collaborate is through stewardship contracts, which are multi-year contracts that allow the Forest Service to use the woody biomass from forest thinning and restoration work to offset some or all of the costs of the work.
In fact, stewardship contracts are yielding significant results in the White Mountains of Arizona. In 2004, the Forest Service awarded the White Mountain Stewardship 10-year contract to Future Forest LLC, a partnership of local businesses. This contract is designed to restore forest health, support local economies and encourage investment in biomass utilization by focusing on the ecological needs of the area and guaranteeing for the contract term a supply of wood to the contractor. Since implementation of the contract, the cost of forest restoration treatments has been reduced significantly, from $1,100 per acre to approximately $550 per acre, and treatments of larger areas are now possible. Additionally, the commercial utilization of the woody biomass generated from forest treatments supports dozens of businesses and hundreds of local full-time jobs.
The Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act, which I sponsored and which became law in 2004, created three institutes to promote the use of adaptive ecosystem management techniques and work with land managers to design and implement science-based forest-restoration treatments. That measure will help produce the science to do effective restoration, using the applied research approach of the institute model employed at the Ecological Restoration Institute (ERI) at Northern Arizona University.
To learn more about the implementation of the Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act, visit: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/partnerships/institutes/index.shtml.
The FY2008 budget included $2 million that I requested for the ERI to continue this important work. An additional $2 million is expected to be made available in FY2009.
Last year, I reintroduced the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program (MSCP) Act, which was cosponsored by Senators Ensign, Feinstein, and Reid. It would authorize appropriations to cover the federal government’s share of the cost of a comprehensive, cooperative effort among 50 federal and non-federal entities in Arizona, California, and Nevada to protect and maintain wildlife habitat along the Colorado River. The bill would also provide assurances to the affected water and power agencies of the three states that their vital river operations may continue as long as they comply with the conservation program.
The Senate passed the initiative in January 2009 as part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, S. 22. That bill is now awaiting action in the House of Representatives.
In August 2007, Senator McCain and I introduced the Sierra Vista Subwatershed Feasibility Study Act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to study ways to add to the water supply in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed, which is home to Fort Huachuca, the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area (SPRNCA), and nearly 76,000 residents in southern Arizona. SPRNCA, which protects nearly 43 miles of the San Pedro River, serves as a principal passage for the migration of approximately four million birds. It also provides crucial habitat for 100 species of birds, 81 species of mammals, 43 species of reptiles and amphibians, and two threatened species of native fish.
Because SPRNCA and the Fort could be negatively affected by declining water levels in the area, the Bureau of Reclamation concluded that augmenting the local water supply may be necessary. The feasibility study authorized under this bill is the next step in the process of determining how to best address the water challenges facing the Sierra Vista Subwatershed.
The Senate approved the Sierra Vista legislation as part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act (S. 22) in January 2009.
In 2005, I received the National Parks Conservation Association’s “National Parks Achievement Award” for my role in securing the enactment of the Petrified Forest National Park Expansion Act. The measure, which is now law, expands the park to include an additional 120,000 acres of checker-boarded federal, state, and private lands to protect against theft of petrified wood and fossils, pot hunting, vandalism to petroglyph sites, and the environmental degradation caused by mineral exploration.
In 2005, President Bush signed into law the Northern Arizona Land Exchange and Verde River Basin Partnership Act, commonly known as the Yavapai Land Exchange. That measure, which I sponsored along with Senator McCain, was supported by the Nature Conservancy, the Central Arizona Land Trust, and the Arizona Antelope Foundation, among others. It will preserve nearly 25,000 ecologically significant acres in the headwaters of the Verde to protect the watershed, safeguard wildlife habitat, and provide outdoor recreation for future generations. Under the exchange, a 110 square-mile-area in the Prescott National Forest near the existing Juniper Mesa Wilderness will be preserved in its natural state. The new boundaries also include the largest stand of privately owned ponderosa pine forest, along with one of Arizona’s last untouched antelope valleys.
The existing formula for allocating federal wastewater infrastructure funds under the Clean Water Act is outdated and fails to account for the rapid growth in Arizona’s population. As a result, the formula fails to allocate federal Clean Water dollars fairly. Arizona is the second-fastest growing state in the nation, but it ranked 50th among the 53 states and territories in terms of the allocation of federal dollars for clean water needs last year.
I am working to change that formula, but in the meantime I have sought funding outside the formula to ensure that Arizona receives a fairer share. I requested funds according to the need to achieve compliance with federal Clean Water Act mandates, community involvement, and the state’s water quality priorities. Here are some of the recent wastewater treatment projects I obtained funding for:
- $300,000 for Bullhead City (Fiscal Year 2008);
- $1.5 million for Lake Havasu City (Fiscal Year 2006);
- $1 million for City of Avondale (Fiscal Year 2006); and
- $800,000 for City of Safford (Fiscal Year 2006).
Some of the other initiatives that I’ve helped to pass include: appropriations for the Yuma National Heritage Area; the Yuma East Wetlands; the expansion of Saguaro National Park; and the federal acquisition of other environmentally sensitive lands for preservation purposes.
The Senate also passed legislation I cosponsored to expand the boundaries of Walnut Canyon National Monument as part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act (S. 22) in January 2009.
